Life in a city on edge

Tom Kay and his wife Adah in Ramallah

Retired architect Tom Kay moved to Ramallah four months ago from London.

He and his wife Adah are both Jewish - Tom was born in Palestine and had lived in Ramallah as a baby.

He is studying Arabic at Birzeit University. His wife is studying in London but visits him frequently.

Below are some extracts from Tom's diary on their life in Ramallah.

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Friday 12 April

At midnight there are three massive explosions down in the valley below us. They are big enough to vibrate the tiled concrete floor and shake the windows.

Our phone has been cut for the last 24 hours so we have to use a neighbour's phone to make calls and send e-mails.

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Thursday 11 April

The machine guns are again very active.

We hear that the Israeli Defence Force have entered Birzeit village and the tanks have surrounded the university campus, but have not entered it. There are hundreds of students living in the village with families.

In the evening I sit on the front steps - it's warm.

We move between the places quite slowly at night. It's difficult to make myself look British in the dark.

I have neither a bowler hat nor an umbrella, and even without the curfew, one cannot buy the Times.

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Wednesday 10 April

After the death of 13 Israelis in Jenin yesterday and soldiers blown up north of Haifa this morning, we were second-guessing Ariel Sharon's next move.

At midday there was a single shot at the back of the house. To the side of the balcony we saw about five Israeli Defence Force members with guns seemingly aimed directly at us.

Comforting the husband of our neighbour who was killed at her home

People started screaming - it went on for ever and ever. We later learned that an ambulance took out a dead woman, shot while hanging out the washing in the garden. There was only one shot fired. Clearly no Palestinian sniper.

At 2pm more shots - machine gun fire and explosions. I can only believe that this morning's killing was revenge for Israelis who have died in the last 24 hours.

In the evening a neighbour says the woman was shot having breakfast on her front terrace. Whichever, she was within her own property and not violating the curfew.

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Monday 8 April

Just spent hour walking through the ruins of the Medical Aid Ophthalmic Centre. Every floor has been vandalised. Inside they had wrecked everything, the equipment, the computers, the bookshop.

The target was clearly the Medical Centre. They had broken through to the neighbouring building. In the latter they found a beauty parlour. They did not touch it.

What's happening here I will not forget for the rest of my life. I feel physically sick.

Today there are three versions of the curfew lifting times:

From Israeli radio 1pm to 6pm

From an Israeli soldier 1pm to 5 pm

From the British Council 1pm to 4pm

The crowds started thinning out at 4pm. A few shots at 5pm but a few people still moving about until 5.30pm. I think this confusion must be deliberate.

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Saturday 6 April

At 4am the tanks are on the move and the shelling starts up.

At 6am there is a series of explosions - sound like dynamite rather than shells. They might be missiles, but I don't hear helicopters.

Tank shells are loud but the blast is very short. These are even louder, but lower in tone and, apart from the echo in the mountains, the blast rumbles on for two or three seconds.

Telephone rumours buzz about. It generally takes a few calls to find out where and what was hit.

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Thursday 4 April

We are now on well water and the power has been off for 36 hours. It is two days since the curfew was lifted.

The four households in the two buildings around our yard plan meals together and it is as if we have all known each other for years.

We spent the morning running around drawing up shopping lists and dividing up tasks.

At 1pm we were all on the pavement waiting for the off. At about 1.10 we started up the road to Al Manara. Burst of gun fire and machine guns. A neighbour went back into the house and phoned a source who had an army ear.

Adah skirted a barbed wire fence to talk to the Israeli soldiers

Five minutes late she came out to tell us that the Israeli Defence Force had "postponed" the curfew lifting. We stood there not knowing what to do.

Looking around us, we could see others striding up the road. Within minutes, cars were revving up and tearing around. The army was going to have to shoot a lot of people to put the curfew genie back in its bottle.

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Tuesday 2 April

The rain is now icy and spirits are low.

At about 2pm telephone rumours started circulating that the curfew was to be lifted for some hours. No-one knew exactly what time.

At about 3pm I saw a car race by and some women in the street.

Adah and I went out at about 3.15 to find the local shop crowded. We gave up, (there was no queuing system) and walked up towards Al Manara.

We happened to be walking with five or six teenagers and were fired at from a side street.

Clearly they were having fun or trying to scare us. None of the shots came anywhere near us.

In the centre, many shop fronts were smashed in. The iron gates to every arcaded or atriumed shopping mall were forced off their hinges, some of them badly bent. The latter could only be done by something like a tank or a bulldozer.

Downstairs, a neighbour has a guest - an American woman who has been working with Mustafa Barghouti's Medical Aid people. She has been driving around delivering food and, among other things picking up dead bodies in front of and in spite of the Israeli troops.

Her stories are horrific. She arrived here in tears but was okay a couple of hours later.

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Monday 1 April

We phoned the shopkeeper, who agreed to open the shutter when we came. He bolted the door immediatley behind us.

The battered shutters of our local shop

Some areas of Ramallah are without water. We have been filling every conceivable container.

We ran out of gas for the heater last night. Freak cold weather seems to be lasting. The sun makes a difference. Every few hours the sun comes out for ten minutes. We all rush outside, snipers or no snipers.

Click here to read Tom's January to March diary